Furuya Sensei posted this to his Daily Message on July 28, 2005.
There is nothing more important than creating trust and friendship in the atmosphere and spirit of a family in a dojo. The old art schools in Japan were known as iemoto (家元) or "family system" arts. Today, we want to see martial arts as a business because we gauge everything in terms of money - and quantities of money are a measure of our success. We cannot see anything outside of the idea of money.
We must focus on the art and our practice and how we can benefit mentally, physically, and spiritually from it in our Lives. However, the reality is that we still must pay the bills and rent which forces us to conform to popular and typical standards of behavior and thinking of the world in general today.
The challenge is to find the perfect balance between today's materialism and how we have turned the insubstantial idea of money into a reality and our personal, inner quest for self-understanding and self-enlightenment through the Path of Aikido.
If everyone pulls together and if everyone works as a tight knit family of good friends and practice partners in the dojo with all of us of one mind and one spirit, then all challenges can be met, I firmly believe, to maintain and preserve our dojos as dojos and Aikido as an art rather than a business.
Ultimately, we must understand that through studying the true essence of Aikido as Budo, we can come to a real understanding of what is trust, family and "one spirit" according to O’Sensei's teachings. Let us all work together to continue to support dojos and our practice.
It is quite often the so-called "reality" of the physical technique as in "martial arts techniques" often lead us to the world of fantasy, conjecture, and supposition. More often the not, it is the "spiritual world" of self-enlightenment and understanding that brings us in touch with the true reality of the world.
To think that physical technique is the path of the physical world, and the spiritual world only lies in idle conjecture and chit-chat is only the superficial assumption of the misinformed and misdirected.
What is the difference between Aikido practice and exercise or a sport? It is a matter of depth of spirit. If our efforts are self-centered as in personal exercise or in being competitive with others as in a sport, it is already a superficial and shallow activity. In Aikido technique, one strives for both the salvation and well-being of the attacker (the other) and the defender (the self), which creates an activity and mental energy which is both profound and complex.
Watch this video of Furuya Sensei explaining Aikido in 1999